BP: refined

In the first decade of the new millennium, oil major BP raised a few eyebrows with its maverick tendencies. Operating a hard-riding oil and gas trading arm that took no prisoners in commodity markets. BP's fourth quarter profit result of $2.1bn, better than expectations by a tenth, got lost in the dust-up of a market rout. Most of the integrated oil majors are go-to stocks in times of market uncertainty. BP, Shell, Total - given their natural hedge producing oil products - should be able to profit regardless of any fluctuation in oil prices and buck the wider trend.